A Farmer’s Life is for the Birds!

The day after I last posted my update, the deer got into my garden and wiped out seven 25 foot rows of green beans. After I stopped crying I vowed to sell the farm and move but with Joe and his family just getting here that was no option so I calmed down. I guess it was due me for thinking I was so smart. This has been a bad year for most of the farmers. Many lost whole crops to the flash flooding and I thought I was so smart planting on the side of the mountain where the big rains just ran off. One of our friends that we always buy our corn from had his crop all in and up when the person who owned the fields he had always used decided to sell his land and since our friend could not afford to buy the land it was sold to someone else with the crop that was on it. So he has no corn to sell this year. Another farmer who always has corn for us had his crop in and just coming up good when the crows got into it and pulled up every piece of corn and killed the whole crop. He was hoping to replant but had to wait for the heavy rain to stop if it would before it was too late. John’s green beans parboiled in the fields when the heavy rain flooded the field and then the hot 90+ weather followed before it dried and the vines all died from the hot water. We missed all those things and were feeling pretty smug so the deer put us in our place this year. When you go to the store and buy all the nice fresh vegetables you want, give a thought about the poor farmer who had to grown them and think about all the problems he had to contend with to get those to you. Back to the garden and see what we can salvage this year. Have a great day.

About Carol (Ouma) Petts

I am a retired teacher. I have taught all levels from kindergarten through college and have been retired now for over 20 years. The last ten years we have lived on a farm and lived off the land, growing our own food and canning for our extended family. Now we have sold the farm and are moving to Florida to truly retire. I guess I have always had a short attention span as this is our 11th move. We have moved from a small farm in New Hampshire, to more city type living, small business adventures, focusing more on traveling, Florida living, Georgia, and Tennessee farming and now back to Florida. My blog is a way to keep my children up to date on what I am doing and letting them know I am still alive and well. My children are spread across the country from New England to Florida, Nova Scotia to New Mexico and CA and several places between, They let me know what they are up to by commenting on my blog but they are so busy with their own lives most times I have to assume " no news is good news". Now I are starting on a new adventure so will try to give daily updates until we get settled into a routine. Then I know even if I am getting older and should settle down I will start looking for some new and exciting adventure to start. Welcome aboard. Norman died Oct 30, 2017 so I am continuing the journey alone with the aid of my children, grand children and great grand children. At present I am living with my daughter and we are 7 in one house and cover four generations. We range in age from 7 to 85 and are finding common ground, we are living proof that multi generations can live and function in a three bedroom house if they really want to. Soon my grandson will have his house built next door so we all will have a room of their own except for the seven year old twins who by choice will share a room.

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2 Responses to A Farmer’s Life is for the Birds!

Don & Joyce says:

August 1, 2013 at 11:00 am

We are so sorry to hear this. You people work too hard to lose so much. You will have to put something up to scare the deer away. It has really been a bad year everywhere.

- Carol (Ouma) Petts says:
  
  August 6, 2013 at 8:20 pm
  
  Hi Joyce, We thought we had a fence up that would keep the deer out. It worked well for six years but I guess the temptation was just too much for them or there are so many now they are bolder but without a dog there just isn’t any way to beat them so I guess we will just have to plant things they don’t like. They don’t seem to like the cucumbers or squash so we can plant lots of those type things. We did find a place to get tomatoes for $8 for a 25 pound box and we can’t grow them for that so we have been getting those and have our canning half done, we want about 200 quarts in all and I guess we will make it. They also have green beans for $28 a bushel so this morning we went down to Dunlap and got three boxes of tomatoes and a bushel of beans. We got 7 quarts canned of the beans and all the others cut up and ready to can in the morning. We will also do half of the tomatoes in the morning and the second half the next day. Then we can pick any that we have ripe and make some cold pack tomatoes for Patty. The others we turn into spaghetti sauce. Hope you are having a good summer. We are enjoying perfect weather for us, not too hot but things don’t ripen very well. We are still waiting for the peaches. It turned out to be quite a few on the two trees we have and they are getting bigger than I have every seen our peaches grow. They should be ready to pick next week, they are getting to be a very pretty color and need only to get a little softer. Keep well. Love Carol

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